The purported main dining room, with a diameter of over 50 feet (16 meters), rested upon a 13-foot (4-meter) wide pillar and four spherical mechanisms that, likely powered by a constant flow of water, rotated the structure.

The hall, situated as it was, would have had one of the best views of Rome even without the rotating razzamatazz.

Nero ruled from 37 to 68 A.D.—about 1,900 years before the first modern-day revolving restaurant would be built (in 1960 at the Ala Moana shopping in Honolulu, according to this fascinating article in the now-defunct magazine Invention & Technology).

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About the Author

Adam Kuban is the proprietor of the pop-up Margot's Pizza, which serves bar-style pizza. But you may also know him as the founder of Slice (RIP, 2003–2014) where he has written thousands of blog posts about pizza. He also created A Hamburger Today and served as Serious Eats's founding editor (2006–2010) after having sold those sites to SE.

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